‘Out of reach’: stalled newbuilds leave Labour’s social housing targets in tatters

The stats are stark: families on Bath and North East Somerset council’s social housing list face a 200-year wait for a four-bedroom property and the latest available figures show England is building just a little over 10,000 social homes a year.Tackling this crisis was a key element of Labour’s election promise to build 1.5m homes over five years, with the government in July announcing plans to spend £39bn building 300,000 affordable homes over a decade, 60% of them for social rent.But hopes of hitting these targets are fading. In London, housebuilding of all kinds has pretty much stalled, prompting the housing secretary, Steve Reed, and the mayor, Sadiq Khan, to announce a controversial package last week that cuts from 35% to 20% the percentage of affordable units a site needs in order for it to be fast-tracked

Woman turned away from UK-Italy flight due to ill child has benefit stopped

A woman has had her child benefit stopped after booking a holiday to Italy because HMRC inferred she had emigrated – even though she and her family did not board the flight.Sally, her three children and her partner were going on holiday to Italy last July, but were refused boarding after one of the children had an epileptic seizure at the departure gate.Sixteen months later, Sally received a letter from tax authorities at HMRC telling her payments for all three children were being stopped as records showed she had taken a one-way flight from the UK to Italy in 2024.“We never even left the country,” she said, explaining how much paperwork she has had to put together to prove to the tax authorities that they had made a mistake.“On receiving the letter, I called the child benefit line and explained the situation but was told I needed to complete the form and submit evidence, which included three months of bank statements from all my accounts, letters from the NHS and school to prove we returned – when we didn’t even leave

Charities and stars call on UK government to set child poverty reduction targets

Celebrities, MPs and children’s charities are among dozens of signatories to an open letter ramping up pressure on the government to set targets for reducing child poverty in the UK.The actor Emilia Clarke, the broadcaster Chris Packham and the presenter George Clarke have put their names to the letter, coordinated by the Big Issue founder John Bird, stating that the government’s reluctance to set binding child poverty reduction targets has “rung alarm bells”.Leading anti-poverty and children’s charities including the National Children’s Bureau, Child Poverty Action Group, Amnesty UK, Barnardo’s and the food bank charity Trussell have all backed the call, as well as MPs and peers representing Labour, Greens and the SNP.“Quite simply, we’re worried that the government does not want its homework marked when it comes to child poverty,” the letter reads. “It’s crucial the government gets the child poverty strategy right

Drone-blocking technology ‘urgently’ required at jails in England and Wales

Drone-jamming technology must be rolled out urgently across jails in England and Wales to help stem the endemic use and trade of drugs by organised gangs, MPs have concluded.The Commons justice select committee has found that the Prison Service’s ability to maintain safety and control is being “critically undermined by the scale of the trade and use of illicit drugs”.It has called for technology such as SkyFence, which uses sensors to block a drone’s computer, to be introduced across the prison estate. Category A prisons, which hold some of the most dangerous inmates, should be given anti-drone technology within two years, according to a report released on Friday.The Labour chair of the cross-party committee, Andy Slaughter, said: “Fuelled by inflated profits, the supply of drugs by organised criminal gangs into prisons is a constant pressure

Nearly 150,000 aged 90 and above wait 12 hours in England’s A&Es each year

Almost 150,000 people aged 90 and over in England are forced to wait longer than 12 hours in A&E every year, with some experiencing “truly shocking” waits of several days stuck in corridors, a report warns.Older people are also being left in their own excrement and wet beds for hours, denied pain relief and forced to watch and hear other patients die next to them because they end up waiting so long for care, according to Age UK.In total, more than 1 million patients aged 60 and over had to wait more than 12 hours to be transferred, admitted or discharged in type 1 emergency departments in 2024-25. One in three (33%) aged 90 or older – 149,293 – were forced to wait more than 12 hours.Caroline Abrahams, the charity director of Age UK, said: “What’s happening to some very ill older people when they come to A&E is a crisis hiding in plain sight which the government must face up to and take immediate action to resolve

Jaywick’s continued decline and intensifying London poverty tell same story of ‘broken’ Britain

It’s Jaywick again. For the fourth time in a row the tiny, apparently unprepossessing seaside village overlooking the north sea just down the coast from Clacton in Essex has reluctantly claimed the unenviable title of England’s most deprived neighbourhood.Top of the indices of multiple deprivation since 2010, Jaywick Sands, once a popular holiday destination for working-class Londoners, has become a emblem of “broken” Britain, an exemplar of economic neglect, austerity and social breakdown, compounded by geographic isolation.Its local MP, Reform leader Nigel Farage, seemed unusually vague when asked about Jaywick’s travails on Thursday. Parts of it, he opined, seemed “depressed,” adding that he was “obviously sad that things aren’t improving more quickly”